Mountain Landscape Magic: Capture Nature in Watercolor

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to the serene landscape tutorial. Today we'll be painting a majestic mountain scene featuring a towering pick in the background, lush pine trees and a tranquil body of water reflecting the beauty of the surroundings. To add more interest, we'll include rocks along the water's edge, creating a harmonious balance between land and water. The inspiration for this painting comes from Mount Burgess in Yoho National Park. However, as you can see from the reference photo, I've taken some artistic liberties to completely transform the mountain silhouette. I've also simplified the overall landscape to ensure it's approachable for painters of all skill levels, so you can enjoy the process without feeling overwhelmed. This painting is inspired by the peacefulness of nature and the breathtaking views of mountain landscapes. Hope is that it transports you to a place of calm and wonder whether you're a seasoned nature lover or simply seeking a creative escape. To bring the scene to life, we will use a rich color palette of deep greens, vibrant blues, and turquoise stones to enhance the water and its reflections. These colors will help create a sense of depth and tranquility while capturing the natural beauty of the landscape. In this tutorial, we will explore a variety of watercolor techniques, such as creating soft and hard edges, blending smooth gradients, and layering to build the dark tones of the mountain. We'll also learn a simple method for painting pine trees without focusing too much on the details. The rocks along the water's edge will provide a great opportunity to practice texture and the dry brush technique. These skills can easily be applied to your own future paintings as well. I will guide you step by step through the entire process, breaking the painting into manageable sections to make it both enjoyable and achievable. Even if you're new to watercolor painting. As always, feel free to follow my instructions closely or add your personal flare to make this painting uniquely yours. This is your creative journey, and I'm here to inspire and encourage you every step of the way. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a serene mountain landscape to admire, perfect as a standalone piece or as a thoughtful gift for a nature loving friend. So gather your supplies, take a deep breath and let's embark on this relaxing artistic adventure together. The painting. 2. Project and Resources: I've prepared a selection of helpful resources for your project available in the projects and resources section. You'll find the PDF file with the supply list I used for this painting along with a reference photo and an image of my finished artwork for guidance. Line drawings in various sizes are also provided so you can print and transfer them onto your watercolor paper in the size that best fits your needs. My painting is in a 16 by 12 inch format. Additionally, there are working progress photos to help you follow the process and focus on specific areas. Feel free to explore these materials and use them to create your own unique and beautiful painting. Please share your final painting in the projects and resources section. I also encourage you to take the time to view each other's work in the student project gallery. It's always inspiring to see what others create, how they do it, and the support of your fellow students can be incredibly comforting. Don't forget to like and comment on each other's work. Lastly, I highly recommend watching each lesson before you begin painting. This will give you a clear understanding of what to expect at each stage of the tutorial. If you find this class helpful, I would greatly appreciate it if you could leave an honest review. Your feedback will help me improve my content and assist other students in deciding whether to join the class. Thank you in advance. 3. Inspiration, Changes, Painting Plan: The inspiration for this painting is Mount Burgess, a stunning location that looks like an incredible place to visit. Perhaps some of you who live nearby recognize it. Painting a landscape can range from being quite simple to feeling completely overwhelming. When I first looked at this photo, my initial reaction was, No way. I'm not going to paint this and turn it into a tutorial. Why? Because the photo is packed with tiny details and my detailed oriented analytical brain would want to paint every single one of them. That would take ages. To make this project more achievable, I knew I would need to simplify the scene. Since I don't work in a hyper realistic style, there is no need to capture every single rock or tree branch. The goal is to capture the essence of the landscape, not every minute detail. The first step in my process was to adapt the long vertical photo into a 16 by 12 or four by three aspect ratio. I used the procreate up on my iPad for this. I started by placing the reference photo onto a 16 by 12 canvas, lowering its opacity and building my landscape based on the photo. I began by sketching out very basic shapes to establish the overall composition. At this stage, I made changes to the mountain silhouette and experimented with the sizes of the trees to create a simpler and also more balanced and visually appealing scene. Next, I applied basic colors to the sketch to get a general overview and spark some inspiration. As you can see, it's quite rough and sketchy, but you can already get a sense of where this is heading. After that, I began refining the sketch, focusing more on individual elements. Once I was satisfied with this initial draft, I created a second more detailed version. Finally, I developed a third and final sketch building upon the previous ones, which served as the foundation for the painting. Once the final sketch was ready, I printed it out at 16 by 12 size and transferred it onto my watercolor paper using a light pad. At this point, it was time to think about how to approach the painting and break it down into manageable steps. Here's how I planned it out. When working on a landscape, I always start with the furthest planes. Usually this means beginning with the sky, which is also the case for this painting. I knew the sky would be the first element to paint. Since the sky is reflected in the water, I decided that we would also paint the water's reflection at the same time. The key is to think about working from the back to the front. Next, moving slightly closer, we have the mountain followed by the hill in the midground. Then we will work on the trees first on the right and then on the left. After that, we will paint the bushes on the left side, and then we will focus on the water. The sky reflection comes first because it represents the furthest plane. Over this, we will paint the mountains reflection and finally, the reflection of the trees. Again, we will be working from the back to the front, but this time within the water. Once the reflections are complete, we will move on to the rocks on the left, breaking them down into simpler layers for ease. A final touch which I added after assigning the painting, something that I almost never do. We could include flying birds. I felt the right side of the landscape was a bit too calm compared to the left, and the movement created by the simple silhouettes of flying birds added a nice balance. Of course, this step is entirely optional. So that's the painting plan. Now we can start building this painting step by step. In the next part, we'll begin with the sky. 4. Sky: I've already transferred my sketch onto the paper and secured it by stapling it to a gator board on all four sides. I also taped the edges to create a clean white border for the final painting. The paper is dry straight from the block. I didn't wet it. But since it's firmly attached with staples, I won't have any issues with buckling. If the sketch looks too dark, I like to use a kneaded eraser to gently roll over it, especially in areas where the painting will be lighter in tone. This helps ensure the pencil lines don't show through too prominently in the final piece. Now let's prepare our colors. I know I'll be using a lot of Windsor blue in this painting, especially for the water. To maintain color harmony, I will also use Windsor blue for the sky. However, Windsor blue is slightly too green and saturated for the sky. To neutralize the green tone, I will add a touch of quinacrodon magenta, which shifts the blue slightly warmer. Then to reduce the saturation, I will add a tiny touch of burnt sienna. For this step, I will be using a size 12 brush. First, let's apply a layer of clean water over the entire sky area. We will use the wet on wet technique to paint the sky, as this method allows us to create smooth transitions from blue to white. This approach immediately simplifies the painting, as the sky in the reference is more detailed. However, as painters, we have the creative freedom to simplify and interpret the scene in our own way. Apply the water evenly over the sky area, including the areas behind the trees. The sky will also be visible through them. Notice that I'm also going slightly over the mountain. This is intentional because the mountain will be painted in much darker tone, allowing us to cover any overlaps easily. But more importantly, this approach prevents awkward gaps from forming between the mountain edge and the sky. If we try to carefully paint around the mountain edge for the sky and then carefully paint the mountain afterward, we may end up with a visible gap. What we are doing now eliminates that issue. Make sure that there are no dry spots and the area is evenly covered with water. To check, look at the paper from an angle to spot any dry gaps. If you see any, fill them with water. If water creates small pools at the edges, when you tilt your painting, gently spread it back across the paper surface. Excess water can create unwanted blooms later. So it's important to address this now. Next, pick up the blue paint and apply it to a few of the darkest areas, leaving significant gaps between the blue. The paint will naturally spread on the wet paper, so living space allows it to flow without overwhelming the white areas. The untouched white paper will suggest clouds giving the sky depth and interest. As long as the paper maintains a sheen on the surface, you can deepen the color by adding more blue to the wet areas. I'm now using pure Windsor bloom to add touches of this color behind the trees on the left and behind the mountain on the right. This slide variation in tone connects the sky to the water, creating harmony in the painting. Keep in mind that Windsor blue is a very, very strong, intense pigment, so use it in very small amounts. And that's it for this part. Nothing too complicated. Just a nice simple wet on wet exercise to set the stage for our landscape. You can let the sky dry completely or move straight to the next part where we'll begin working on the water. 5. Sky Reflection: Now that we've painted the sky, which is the furthest plane in the painting, and it's still wet, we can move on to the sky reflection in the water. We will build the water area in layers, much like a landscape but upside down. First comes the sky followed by the mountain and then the trees. The water is more complex than the sky as it incorporates more colors. Let's begin by preparing our palette. The water is primarily green, so we will need a lot of green tones. Start with Windsor green yellow shade. For a warmer green, green gold works beautifully. Of course, we will also need Windsor blue. On its own, it links the water with the sky, but when mixed with Windsor green, it creates stunning turquoise shades. On the left side of the painting we also incorporate burnt sienna. This will be used near the rocks to capture their warmer tones. Since this is a larger area than the sky, I recommend using a bigger brush for applying the water layer. I'll be using a 1 " flat brush, but feel free to use whatever large brush you have available. Apply a water layer evenly across the entire water area, carefully working around the rocks on the left. Don't worry too much about the small spaces between the rocks for now. We will address that later when we paint the dark reflections. No. Once the water layer is applied, start adding your colors. Blues and greens will dominate here. Mix Windsor blue with Windsor green to create a vibrant turquoise tone. On the left side of the water, use warmer greens like green gold to reflect the warmer tones of the nearby bushes. On the right side of the water, make sure to leave some white areas to reflect the white clouds. In the bottom left corner, use burnt sienna to mimic the color of the rocks. I recommend watching this video first to see where I apply the colors and how the final result looks. Then replay the video and paint along to achieve a similar effect in your work. This approach works well for every part of the tutorial. In the bottom right, I add a deeper green and blue tones to deepen the color of the water. Oh As you apply the colors, tilt your painting to encourage the paint to flow naturally across the paper. This movement helps the colors blend beautifully, creating soft gradients. Aim to tilt the painting from left to right and vice versa to reflect the horizontal surface of the water, since we won't be adding a second layer, ensure that the colors are dark enough at this stage. For the areas near the rocks, I'm using a darker mix of burnt sienna and Windsor blue to emphasize depth and contrast. M Remember to remove the excess paint from the edges. If left unchecked, this excess can create unwanted blooms as the paint dries. I like to tilt my painting until I see that paint stops moving and there are no petals of water or paint along the edge. This indicates that the paint has settled and is ready to dry evenly. Now we've completed the sky and the first layer of the water. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. The colors are vibrant and create sunning gradients. While the colors will lose some vibrancy as they dry, that's just part of the watercolor process. Once everything is dry, we will move on to painting the mountains. 6. Mountains - First Layer: Now that everything is completely dry, I let it dry overnight. We can begin working on the mountain. If you notice any overlaps from the previous layers, and you should see notice some of them, you can soften those hard edges. To do this, take a scrubber brush, dip it in water, and remove the excess water with a paper towel. Gently rub the edges of the overlaps to activate the paint, then dab the area with the paper towel. This will lift the darker pigment and leave a soft transition. In this case, softening the edges isn't really necessary because those sharp edges may add interest to the texture of the mountain and to the visual interest. However, softening hard edges is useful when painting other subjects like flower petals, for example, where you want a smoother transition between colors and you don't want to have those sharp edges. Now, for this layer, I will be using a size eight brush. We'll need a mix of Windsor blue with a touch of quinacredon magenta. This combination will give us a more neutral blue and a range of beautiful purples that we can incorporate into the mountain. Additionally, we will need some burnt sienna to reflect the warmer areas of the mountain, which could be catching more sunlight. This will add variety, interest, and help neutralize the blue in some sections. Start painting from the left side of the mountain, which is the furthest away. Begin with the light blue mix, applying it to the bottom of the mountain, and then shift to burnt sienna at the top. Rinse your brush and blood it on a paper towel and with a clean damp brush, soften the bottom edge of the blue to create a smooth transition. Repeat this process on the second mountain peak. Always remember to soften the bottom section of the mountain to create that misty, distant mountain effect where the bottom is lighter in tone and has fewer details. Now continue applying the colors to the rest of the mountain. Notice that there is snow on the mountain. On the left side, the snow is in the shadow, so it won't be pure white. The light blue we've been applying will represent that shadowed snow. On the right side of the mountain, where the sun heats more directly, we want to keep the snow areas lighter and more white. Instead of adding white gouache later, I recommend painting around those snow areas to preserve the brightness of the snow. You could also use masking fluid to block off the snow areas before painting. But given that the mountain isn't very large, we can handle it without masking. At this stage, I'm using a light tonal value. Remember, we will build the colors and tonal values gradually with each layer. At the bottom of the mountain, we can begin suggesting the green forest area on the hill. For this, I'm using Windsor Green and green gold in very light tones. We are painting wet on dry at this point, not wet on wet. This gives us more control over the paint. Since the mountain peaks aren't too large, we can manage painting them wet on dry. Also, with a light, watery paint consistency, we can easily create smooth gradients from blue to brown without harsh edges. And don't worry if you create any imperfections or hard edges. This is just the first layer, and any imperfections will either be covered with future layers or contribute to the overall texture of the mountain. Once you've finished, dry everything with a hair dryer, give it a few minutes to cool down, and we will move on to the second layer. 7. Mountains - Second Layer: Now that the first layer is completely dry, we will focus on painting the four peaks, tackling each one individually. For the colors, we will need a mix of Windsor blue and quinacrodon magenta. We'll also mix Windsor blue with quinacrodon magenta, pains gray, and burnt sienna. This combination will give us a darker, purplish blue tone that still blends harmoniously with the rest of the colors. Let's start with the first mountain peak and a diluted version of burnt sienna. The goal here is to paint the mountain peaks in a way that suggests they are receding into the distance. The farther away a peak is, the lighter the color should be. At this stage, it may look dark, but I know that after drying with a hair dryer, it will be much paler. Once you've painted the first peak, dry it with a hair dryer. As you can see, it's much lighter now. Drying is essential because we don't want the colors from the first peak to blend with the next. The dry edge helps define the hard boundary between the peaks. Now start applying the blue to the second mountain peak. Pay close attention to painting around the snow areas. This requires careful work, so take your time. I know that painting without direct specific reference photo that you would like to recreate can be challenging, but you can always refer to my finished painting for guidance. My approach here is imagine how the snow would look based on the reference photo we have and applying some artistic interpretation. I'm leaving lighter areas for the snow and adding darker blues to create more visual texture and depth. The lighter gaps will suggest areas that catch more light like the snow reflecting the sun. A once I finish this, I'll dry everything again with a hair dryer before moving on to the next mountain peak. Now let's tackle the next mountain peak. This one is much more in shadow and also has some snow areas. For this, we will use a middle value blue. At this stage, we are painting middle values and incorporating a bit of the negative painting technique. This means that instead of painting the snow areas themselves, we are painting around them, which brings the snow to life. For this area, I'm using more blue in the upper part of the mountain. And as I go down, I'm adding a bit more green to suggest trees and grasses on the mountain slope. Y Once this area is dry, we can move on to the main peak. For this area, I'm starting with a light blue and gradually adding various colors to build the structure of the mountain using blue, brown, green, and even a bit of purple. On the right side, the mountain catches more sunlight. I imagine the light source is from the upper right, so I'm leaving some light areas to create highlights and emphasize the structure of the mountain. I'm using quite watery paint to ensure the colors blend smoothly. I'm also softening the edges at the bottom. This helps create a misty distant feel. Take your time here and work carefully, leaving light areas to add visual texture. Looking back, I think I might have gone a bit too light at the bottom of the mountain on the right side. I wanted to create a light misty effect, knowing the mountain is far away and should reflect aerial perspective. However, now that I look at it, I feel I might have added some darker tones at the bottom to enhance the contrast. Feel free to adjust your painting based on your own vision. If you think more darker tones will enhance your mountain, go ahead and add them. We'll be applying one more layer so you have some room for adjustments. Now, the second layer is applied and dry. This is what it looks like so far. Make sure everything is thoroughly dry, and when you're ready, we can move on to the next part. 8. Mountains - Third Layer: Now that the previous layers are dry, we can begin applying the darkest tones to the two main mountain peaks. For this, I'm mixing a dark blue paint using Windsor blue, paints gray, quinacrodon magenta, and burnt sienna. The paint may look lighter on the palette, but because we've built up several layers, it will appear much darker on the paper. At this stage, we want to darken the overall mountain while leaving some gaps in the paint to highlight the structural elements of the mountain. The previous middle value layer now acts as a light reflection in some areas. Remember to soften the edges at the bottom of the mountain to keep the misty effect. After darkening the left mountain, I move directly to the right one with the same dark blue tone. Since the paint is still wet, it will naturally blend together, which is fine. Think of it as one large mountain shape that is starting to come together. Notice that I'm following the shape of the mountain with my brush strokes. Instead of using horizontal lines, I'm carefully painting from top to bottom, leaving lighter gaps where the light would naturally hit the mountain. The right side of the mountain requires more attention as we need to paint around the snowy areas. This takes more time and focus, but the result will be worth it. Lastly, I will add more blue to the triangular shape at the bottom of the mountain to strengthen that area and create a sense of depth. Looking at the second mountain peak, I think it looks slightly too pale compared to the larger mountain. So I'm adding another layer of bloom to darken it just a bit and bring it into balance with the rest. Once this final layer is applied, we need to dry everything completely with a hair dryer. After that, in the final part of painting the mountains, we will add some tiny details to finish the effect. 9. Mountains - Cracks and Crevices: For this part for this part, I will be using a smaller brush size four. Using the same dark blue, I will add some darker lines to create cracks and crevices in the mountain. This is a simple process. Just paint some random lines that will enhance the overall look of the mountain and add more visual texture. We can add these cracks in random spots, and I also like to paint some darker lines near the snow areas to create a shadow effect. He At this stage, you can also switch to a larger brush if you like, and darken bigger areas. Personally, I was quite happy with how the mountain looked at this point. I felt it was dark enough. I wanted to strike a balance because it's generally dark, but it's in the distance, so it should appear slightly lighter. However, if I were to paint this again, I would probably go even darker, especially on the green hill below. Actually, maybe it's not the mountain, I should go darker but the hill below. Since the hill is closer to us, it's not in the distance as much as the mountain. The hill should be darker. See how smart I am after the fact. Okay, now that we've added the cracks and crevices and darkened some areas with a bigger brush, let's dry everything and move on to the next step, which will be painting the hill. 10. Hill: We've already painted the furthest plane, which was the sky, and then we moved a bit closer to paint the mountains. Now it's time to move even closer and paint the hill. This hill, like all the other elements in this painting, gives us a lot of freedom to interpret. Can shape it differently or even skip painting the hill entirely and add more trees on the right, or perhaps paint a smaller rockier mountain instead. There are no restrictions. I choose a hill here because I thought it would create a nice backdrop for the trees in front. To paint the hill, I will start with a size eight brush, but I will switch a different one soon, a bigger one. We'll need some greens. If we mix windsor blue with windsor green and add a touch of burnt sienna, we will get a nice shade of green that we can adjust to be more blue, green, or brown. I'm switching to a size ten brush here because the size eight felt a bit too small. Begin by painting the main shape of the heel using the wet on dry technique with a watery paint consistency. Once you're happy with the shape, switch to a smaller brush size four. Using greens and blues again, apply very short vertical brush strokes to paint the tiny trees on the edge of the hell. Since the heel is still wet, the paint creates tiny tree shapes with hard edges. But when the paint meets wet surface of the hell, it will seamlessly blend with it and create very smooth transitions. I Now we can continue working on the hill. I'm still using the small brush and adding more colors and brush strokes in various areas to build up the darker tonal values and create the impression of a hill covered with trees. As the paint dries, my brush strokes will become less blurred. I wanted to avoid painting too low, since I knew I would be adding trees in front. But as you can see, there is a light area behind the trees, and that's fine. It could suggest mist. However, if I were painting this again, I would go much lower or maybe not much lower, but lower with the trees on the hill. So you can learn from my mistake, or it's not actually a mistake, but it's just another idea how we can do this. You can either paint those blurred trees slightly lower to reduce the light green area behind the trees in front or at a darker tone in the lower part. I think it would look better if I painted taller trees on the right, the trees in front. I don't know. After the fact, I'm really smart, lesson learned, Okay, the blurred forest on the distant hill is finished. Now we can dry it with a hair dryer and move on to painting the trees on the right hand side. 11. Trees on the Right Side: In this part, we will paint the trees on the right hand side. This will be a repetitive process, so I will show you how I do it, highlighting the key elements, and then I will shorten the rest. For painting the trees, we will need various shades of green. Let's start with the warmest green gold. Next, let's mix the main green, which will be a combination of Windsor green and burnt sienna. Windsor green, yellow shade is a strong and vibrant green. But when we add burnt sienna to it, it turns into a more natural looking, very beautiful shade of green. Finally, the darkest green will again be a mix of Windsor green and burnt sienna, but darkened with a touch of pains gray. To paint the trees, I will be using a size four brush. It may seem small, but we need a sharp point for painting the branches. These trees aren't very large. I'll start by painting a middle line to roughly establish where I want the tree to be. Then starting from the top, I'll begin adding the branches. I'm holding my brush at a low angle and the paint on my bristles isn't too watery. This way, when I drag the bristles to the left and right, I can create a bit of texture, which will enhance the look of the branches. I will drop in some dark green here and there to make it more interesting. Finally using the tip of my brush, I may add some short brush strokes to represent smaller branches. Because we are using various tonal values and a mix of soft and hard edges, this creates a convincing looking pine tree. At the bottom, we can just fill in this area with a dark green. We'll add some details later. Now, I'll continue painting each tree the same way, letting the bottom parts blend together to form one large dark green area with the bushes. A tricky part of this process for me was keeping the trees fairly thin. When you start painting the tree from the top, it's very tempting to quickly widen the branches towards the bottom, but that's something we want to avoid. These trees are tall and slim, as you can see, especially in the trees on the left hand side. The lower part of the tree isn't very white, so resist the urge to widen the branches too much at the bottom. From this angle, you can see I start with a lighter green tone and then revisit some areas with a darker green. The top part of the tree is very thin with just a few random short brush strokes. At the bottom, I connect all the trees using various shades of green. On the left side, I first applied green gold at the bottom part and added small dark trees. When the dark paint meets the wet warm green, it nicely blends with it, creating a smooth effect. Once we finish, we can revisit some of the trees and paint more dark branches and tree trunks peeking through. At the bottom, I'm also adding random brush strokes to create the impression of chaos, bushes, and maybe some tall grasses. B. With a few darker brush strokes on the branches, we can finish this part and move on to painting the trees on the left side. 12. Trees on the Left Side: We will paint the trees on the left to we'll paint the trees on the left in a similar way. But here we want to be more careful. We'll also use some negative painting technique. These trees are closer to us, and the closer an object is, the more detail we see. So we need to be more careful with how we paint them. For these trees, I'll be using a size six brush. We'll use the same color mixes as before, green gold, windsor green with burnt sienna, and winds green with burnt sienna and paints gray. Let's begin with the first tree on the left. The top part is dark, so I will pick a dark green. As I move down, I will gradually switch to green gold. The pencil drawing here is more detailed, which will help guide us with the branches, especially to prevent painting branches that are too white and to help keep the trees tall and slim. As I move downward, I will shift the color to a warmer green. I'll start with a mix of Windsor green and green gold and then transition to green gold on its own. The goal is to use a wide variety of greens to make the tree more interesting. Notice that we're not focusing on fine details, but instead, we're painting more of a silhouette of the tree while varying the colors and tonal values. B. At the bottom, I'll return to a dark green because we know there will be lighter bushes in front to create a clear distinction between the bushes in front and the trees in the back, and to push those trees more into the background, I will use a dark green at the bottom. As you paint this area, imagine the shape of the bush in front and try to paint a jagged edge. M Now let's move on to painting the next tree. This one is pretty straightforward. There are many, many brush strokes creating the branches. At the bottom part, again, try to imagine the bush in front and paint around it, creating a leafy edge. The next tree is similar. Notice that I'm keeping it very, very thin, only widening it slightly at the bottom. Towards the bottom, I'm using more Windsor green and green gold. This variety in tones between the light and dark areas of the tree creates a nice effect where the trees appear to grow one behind another. The snake tree is, again, pretty dark. By now, the warm green at the bottom of the previous tree should have dried. When painting the dark green, I can paint the branches over those warm green areas on the left. This will create a nice three dimensional look. Finally, the last tree on the right is also dark, and the lower branches will be painted over the warm green of the trees in the back. M Now I'm switching to a different brush. It's a liner brush with long thin bristles. It's not necessary. You don't need it. You can use a small brush, a regular round brush. Now I'm painting the two thin pine trees in the back. As I move down, I meet the nice warm lighter tree on the left. If I now use a dark green and paint in between the small branches of the tree on the left, this is a negative painting technique. This means I'm essentially retrieving or bringing back the lighter branches against the dark background by painting around those lighter branches. I know it may sound complicated, but you can see the effect clearly. Normally, we wouldn't be able to paint light green over dark green with transparent watercolors. So this is an alternative way how we can achieve this. I think it creates a really nice effect. Finally, as a finishing touch, we can paint a tree trunk peeking through the branches. We can also add some random twigs here and there, along with some random brush strokes to create more texture and the impression of branches growing around the trunk. When the trees are done, we can move on to paint the bushes below. B 13. Bushes: To paint the bushes, let's begin by applying the main light warm green color over the entire area. I'll switch back to a size eight brush and use a mix of green gold and Windsor green. For now, all we need to do is apply various shades of green across this entire area. Nothing more. This will serve as our base. At the bottom, we can drop in some burnt sienna to suggest sand or rocks, but we're just creating a foundation for the next layers. Once finished, use a hair dryer to quickly dry this first layer. Now we can begin building the structure and texture. To build the structure, we have to imagine clumps of bushes or grasses. Some of them are in the front and some in the back. Those in the back will have a darker green tone at the bottom, and we'll catch more light at the top, so they will be lighter at the top. Next, we'll build the texture. While we can use short regular brush strokes to create the texture, I think a more effective way is to use dry brushing. This technique involves loading your damp brush with paint that is not wet and then rubbing the side of the bristles on the paper. Because the brush is not too wet, the bristles won't contain much water, and the dry brush will leave random textures on the cold pressed paper. The textured paper will help with this effect. But the key element is that the paint should be fairly dry. So don't load your brush with too much water. Dip it in water, then remove the excess by dabbing it on a paper towel. After that, pick up some paint on the damp brush, and then again, dab it on a paper towel or regular towel, as I do to remove the excess moisture. We'll also use this technique later to create texture on the rocks. Of course, we can also change the color as needed. At the bottom, I'm using more Burnt Sienna. Once I'm happy with the texture, I will switch to regular brush strokes again using dark green paint to define the shadows more clearly and create greater distinction between the bushes. At the bottom, I'm adding elongated brush strokes to suggest grass. For painting tall grasses, I switch back to a liner brush with elongated bristles, as this brush makes it easier to paint longer lines. Now, there's one more thing I would like to do, but it's totally optional, so you can skip it if you prefer. Because we can't typically paint light over dark with watercolors, and that's something I would like to do. I will be using guash for this step. I'm using white designers guash by Windsor Newton. I squeeze a tiny amount onto a piece of paper and mix it with green gold and Windsor green. Since guache is an opaque paint, we can mix it with watercolor colors and use it to paint light over dark. The mix of white guache, green gold, and Windsor green creates a nice light green that I can now use to paint over the dark areas. Here I'm adding random dots here and there to suggest leaves and high grasses. I think this adds a nice touch of randomness creating the impression of a wild natural environment. With these details added using the white guash, we can consider this area finished. Now let's move on to painting the reflection of the mountain in the water. 14. Mountain Reflection: In this part, we're going to paint the reflection of the mountain in the water. It's not a difficult part, but I would like you to first watch this part carefully to understand how and why I'm doing this in this specific way. I'll be using a size 12 brush for this section. To start, I need cleaner blues, so I will clean the right side of my palette and prepare fresh colors. I'm mixing Windsor blue and Windsor green to achieve a beautiful turquoise. On the left side, I'm also mixing Windsor blue with paints gray and a tiny amount of Windsor green to get a deep dark blue that I might need for the shadows and deeper areas. Start by applying a water layer to this area, but leave a gap between the water layer and the pencil line. I'll try to tilt my painting to show you this from a different angle. This is important because we will combine two techniques here wet on dry to paint the edge of the reflection and wet on wet to fill the rest of this area with soft color gradients. Now, as we begin painting the edge of the reflection, we're painting on dry paper, which allows us to create that hard edge. But when the paint meets the wet area, the edge becomes soft and blurry, which is what we need to achieve. Notice how the edge of the mountain reflection isn't as straight as the real mountain edge. Because it's water, the reflection distorts slightly causing the edge to become a bit wavy. Once the edge is painted, we can now fill the rest of this area with colors. I want to use mainly turquoise on the right side and more green on the left. Tilt your painting left and right to encourage the paint to move in the horizontal direction. An on both sides under the banks, I'm adding more green to reflect the trees and bushes growing there. I'm also using burnt sienna on the left side. We're not painting the tree reflections yet, but we are establishing colors in these areas. We'll paint the reflections in the next part. Now we can suggest some shapes. For example, on the left, I may suggest the blurry shape of a tree reflection. On the right, I will add some vertical lines to suggest reflections of the pine trees. I also notice some white areas left intentionally unpainted. If we observe water, you'll often see those white areas or reflections that aren't fully covered by paint. Now, let's dry everything and move on to painting the reflections of the trees. 15. Trees Reflection: Painting the reflections of the trees is really easy and should take you no more than 5 minutes. For this part, I will use a mix of green gold, Windsor green, windsor blue, and burnt sienna. We want to stay within the same color palette we've been using so far. I want to point out that my painting isn't super realistic. If it were, we would have to paint all the ripples on the water and the intricate reflections and details. There is so much going on in the reference, and honestly, these details always discourage me from painting landscapes. One hand, landscapes are beautiful, but on the other hand, capturing all the details I would like to include takes so much time. That's why I don't paint many landscapes. But when I do, I try to simplify everything and focus on creating an impression of the scene. That's exactly what we are doing here. For the reflections of the trees, we'll use simple wiggle lines, zigzags and random brush strokes. I'm focusing on painting the reflection of each tree in the correct position more or less using vertical lines that follow the surface of the water. I'll repeat the same technique on the left side, ensuring the reflection is placed directly under each tree. It might not be the most complex or sophisticated approach, but I think it's more than enough to create a convincing landscape. It's also a simple method that those of you who are less experienced with landscapes like me will really appreciate. And that's all for this part. Now we can move on to painting the final element of this landscape, the rocks. So 16. Rocks - Structure: I'm going to break down the process of painting the rocks into three easy parts. This will help us stay on track and build this area step by step. First, I want to clean my palette. Now we're going to switch to a different color palette, so a clean space will be helpful. It's also a good time to change the water. To paint the rocks, we will need some neutral colors and browns. Let's start with burnt sienna as our main brown. If we mix burnt sienna with ultramarine blue, this will give us a wide range of browns, grays, and beige colors. I'm using here ultramarine blue instead of Windsor blue because burnt sienna with Windsor blue would create a greenish tone, but with ultramarine blue, it creates a nice gray. We'll also need a dark tone, a dark brown, which will be a mix of burned sienna and pains gray. For this step, I will be using a brush size eight. Let's begin with burned sienna. I've added just a tiny touch of ultramarine blue to neutralize the brown a bit. Now this step is very straightforward and simple. At this stage, we want to build the main structure of each stone. Since we don't have a good reference photo, feel free to treat my finished painting as a reference or use your imagination as I am doing. I'm imagining that the light source is coming from the upper right, so the top part of each rock should stay lighter, and the sides, especially the bottom left side of each rock should be in shadow, and that's all we need to know to build the structure. At this stage, our aim is to paint those shadows. The pencil lines actually show us more or less where the shadows are. I want to draw your attention to the colors I'm using. Notice that I'm not painting one big brown shadow or one big gray shadow in each area. I'm applying browns, grays, and blues, so the shadows are colorful. This is important because first, it makes the shadows more interesting and second, worm burnt sienna, acts as reflected light in the shadow areas, giving the rocks warmth and life. I highly recommend you experiment with the colors and make your shadows colorful. Don't worry about the blooms or any mistakes. They will all contribute to the final textured look of the rocks. At this stage, we just want to establish those dark areas to have a general structure of each rock. When you apply the paint, feel free to revisit some areas after a minute or two and drop in a different color. For example, if you applied more bluish tones, you can drop in some brown, which will add a nice accent color. Once the shadows are in place, we can finish this part. Dry everything completely, and wait a few minutes until the paper cools down, and then we will move on to the next part, pretty fun part. We will paint the texture. A. 17. Rocks - Texture: This part may look a bit messy and maybe a bit scary, but actually it's the most fun part of this painting. So don't worry, you'll be fine. In this part, we want to build the texture of the rocks. We've already established the light areas where the highlights are and the shadows, but now we want to make the rocks look a bit more convincing by adding some texture. Could try to build texture with long and short brush strokes using the wet on dry technique, leaving some unpainted areas for highlights. But again, I think that the better way is to use the dry brush technique, the same as we used to paint the bushes, which will create a more natural and random looking texture. So here's how to do it. Rinse your brush and remove the water by dabbing it on a towel. The bristles should be just slightly damp. Pick up the paint on the side of the bristles, dab it on a towel to remove any excess moisture, ensuring the bristles are almost dry and now using the side of the bristles, gently rub the paper surface. This is the same process we used to paint the bushes. The dry paint and bristles rubbing against dry textured paper will create a nice texture on the rocks. In places where the paint is more wet, we will get more solid areas. Where it's drier we get more texture. Feel free to change the colors as needed to achieve the effect you want. I think it's a good way to hold your brush almost parallel to the paper surface. Notice that I'm not holding my brush like a pencil now, but more like a fork, maybe. I don't know how to describe it, but you can see that it's almost as if the brush were laying on the table, and I just lift it up slightly. This is a very nice way of adding texture to various objects. We can also manipulate the tonal value by using much darker paint in the darkest areas and very light tones in the highlight areas. This type of texture is impossible to achieve by painting in a regular way with your brush, so it's good to know that we can do it this way, achieve this effect this way, and use this technique in other paintings when it's needed. You have even more control over what you're doing, you can hold your brush very close to the bristles. I also highly encourage you to slow down at this stage. You don't have to hurry to create this texture. I would even say that in this textured chaos, it's best to slow down and carefully plan each brush stroke. Even when adding this random texture, I'm thinking about the form of each rock and how it's curved, where there may be crevices and whether the surface is more rounded or straight. I make my brush strokes accordingly. When you finish adding the texture, hold your brush again in the normal position and use dark paint to carefully paint the darkest areas, such as the crevices between the rocks to make sure there is a clear distinction between each rock. You can also slightly shape the look of some rocks. As a final step when everything is completely dry, we can apply a very light brown color to the highlighted areas. This will eliminate the whiteness of the paper. That may be too harsh in some areas and will act as a unifying glaze, bringing everything together. And with that, the rocks are finished. They might still look a bit weird. But when we add the reflection in the next part, they will gain more character and look really good. 18. Rocks - Reflection: First, I want to fill this white area with some turquoise color. Since it's a water area, it needs a bit of color as well. And after applying this color quickly, dry it with a hair dryer. Now we need to prepare a color for the reflection of the rocks. Let's mix burnt sienna with paints gray and add some Windsor green and green gold. With this dark color, paint the reflections of the rocks using the wet on dry technique. Use horizontal lines to reflect the water surface and leave some gaps between the brush strokes to suggest highlights on the water. Change the color along the way to more turquise to add interest and variety in colors, but keep it really dark. Oh. The edges of these reflected shapes are also not straight but jagged, just like the reflection of the mountain to reflect the ripples on the water. I think that adding this dark reflection really brings these dead rocks to life. In the bottom left, use more burnt sienna in your mix. Maybe there is more sand or rocks under the water, which is why we see more brown here, and we want to reflect that. We could finish at this stage, but of course, I like to make things more complex than they could be. So I thought we could also add a tiny detail. I'm going to mix white gouache with some blue and green, but mainly blue. With the pale blue color, I'm going to paint those light reflections just under the rocks. These are simple lines with some gaps. That's another level of detail we can add. We can also apply these lines on the water surface, for example, again, to suggest some light reflections and under the banks or in the distance on the water. And with that, theoretically, we finished the painting. At this stage, I signed my painting. And typically, when I sign my painting, it's done and I never come back to it or fix it. But this time, I made an exception, and I decided to add birds, and we'll do this in the next part. That. 19. Birds: So I noticed that the left side of the painting looks pretty heavy while the right side feels a bit empty. So to add some movement and balance, I decided to paint some flying birds. I used a size four brush and dark paint to paint their silhouettes. Birds are really simple with no details because they are so small. First, I paint the main body, which is lined with a bulge in the middle. And then I add simple lines representing the wings wider near the body and tapering down toward the tip. And I painted five birds, and then I had to do some mental gymnastics to paint their reflections in the water. Believe me, it was not easy. Not only were they upside down, but I also had to place them in the correct position, which took quite a bit of thought. I used a much lighter version of the same color for the reflections. In the line drawing I've provided, I've already included the birds. So if you want to add them, your task will be much easier. With this little addition, I can finally say that the painting is finished. Now I will remove the masking tape and reveal a nice clean border around the painting. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, and surprisingly, it took me less time to paint it than I initially thought. Now let's move on to the final part where we will summarize what we've learned in this tutorial. 20. Summary: Thank you so much for joining me in this watercolor painting tutorial. I hope you found it enjoyable and that it has inspired you to try this painting yourself. Now, let's take a moment to recap what we've covered throughout this project. We started by dividing the painting process into manageable stages by focusing on one element at a time, like the background, mountains, trees, and reflections. We made the process more approachable and less overwhelming. This method ensures that each component receives the attention it deserves leading to a harmonious final piece. We explored a little bit how to analyze a reference photo and make adjustments to align it with our artistic vision. This step included simplifying complex details and modifying decomposition. We learned techniques to capture the snow covered mountains and a hill covered with forest. We focused on painting pine trees with a combination of loose and detailed brush work to create a natural look. By varying the intensity of green shades and using fine strokes, we achieved the characteristic shape, and texture of these trees adding depth to the landscape. We worked on creating water reflections. We used hard and soft edges to paint the reflections. This technique allowed us to replicate the mirrored effect of the landscape on the water's surface, enhancing the tranquil atmosphere of the scene. We also used a dry brush technique to add texture to the bushes and rocks. This method helped create a sense of roughness and natural variation essential for achieving a realistic look in these smaller details. Finally, we also used white gushed at some tiny details and finishing touches. I hope you enjoyed the process and feel inspired to paint this lovely landscape. Thank you again for spending this time with me. It means so much to me to share this journey with you. Happy painting, and I can't wait to see your beautiful creations. Goodbye and take care. Bye.